


you could be happy

by liionne



Series: A thousand ways to meet [13]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:14:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liionne/pseuds/liionne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're the <i>nanny</i>?"</p>
<p>Jim smiled. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten that reaction. Sure, the line between gender specific jobs was becoming seriously blurred, but a male nanny was still pretty unheard of. Pretty unheard of, and often pretty unwanted. As was the case here, evidently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you could be happy

"You're the _nanny_?"

Jim smiled. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten that reaction. Sure, the line between gender specific jobs was becoming seriously blurred, but a male nanny was still pretty unheard of. Pretty unheard of, and often pretty unwanted. As was the case here, evidently.

Dr. McCoy shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't think-"

"Christ Len what is this, the 60s?" His wife, Mrs. McCoy snapped, scowling at him in a very private way. "Give the guy a chance."

Dr. McCoy seemed to be having none of it. "Look, we've already interviewed enough nannies for today, and I'm sure you're great, but-"

"Shut up." She hissed, pure venom on her face before she looked back to Jim. Her expression softened, and she smiled sweetly. "Did you bring a resume, Jim?"

"Uh, yeah." He nodded. He'd worked for families who were under stress, who were straining to keep together before, but never this bad. He handed over the sheets of paper, and watched as she read them over. She gave a warm - and maybe even a little bit smug - smile, and handed it over to Dr. McCoy.

"Damn." He murmured, as he leafed through. "You were the head at Enterprise Day Care?"

"For three years." Jim nodded.

"And you trained at Federation State?"

"Mm."

Enterprise Day Care and Federation State were the best of the best. And so maybe he had got into the Federation by a total fluke, but he had _aced_ his courses, and he'd taken over _Enterprise_ within 6 months of working there. He was their youngest Head Nanny, and many said he was the best.

"Huh." Dr. McCoy murmured. He tilted his head a little to the side, heaved a sigh, and set the papers down on the table.

Mrs. McCoy smiled. "When can you start?"

~*~

In the weeks that followed, Jim learned a lot about the McCoys. Dr. McCoy was in his third and final year of a medical residency, and he was always given stupidly long hours and some of the worse shifts, having to work the graveyard shift more often than not. When Jim asked, which he didn't often, the good doctor said it was just his turn. He'd had a good two years, and now was his time to take the crap.

His wife, just like himself, was never at home. She went out for work at nine o'clock in the morning, and often didn't return till nine o'clock that evening, meaning that Jim had a lot of time to look after baby Jo. She seemed like a nice enough women, if a little snippy with her husband. But then again, Doctor McCoy was no joy to be around either.

Jim saw him a lot in the early evenings, as the sun was setting and he was getting ready to put Jo to bed. That was when Doctor _"Cut it out with the Doctor, kid"_ McCoy would emerge from the spare room - because Jim never failed to notice that he had seemingly set up permanent residence in the spare room - like a bear from hibernation, and would come downstairs to the kitchen, where Jim was usually trying to stuff Joanna's mouth full of berry-flavoured something.

He'd kiss the top of his daughter's head, smile sleepily at the squeal of delight she gave, and raise an eyebrow at Jim. It was going to be the eyebrow that put the fear of God into little med interns, he knew it.

"More berry flavoured mush?" He'd ask, making himself a cup of coffee.

"It gets her to eat her vegetables." Jim'd reply, before popping the spoon in her mouth.

One night, he came down without a shirt on.

Jim was pretty sure he'd died and gone to heaven. A weird kind of heaven, but heaven all the same.

He was all tanned skin and toned muscles and he was a total regulation hotty to begin with but _now_ \- well, just wait until Carol heard about this one. Mrs. McCoy must've been made of stone to resist _this_.

Jim faltered a little, jaw going slack and his hand with it.

The berry-coated carrot slice hit the floor with a squelch.

"C'mon kid," McCoy muttered, frowning disdainfully at the floor before looking back up at him. "Even Jo can keep her hand straight."

"Y- yeah." Jim mumbled. He looked down at her plate, only to find that there was no food left on her plate. He sighed. "Sorry Jo Jo." He said.

She just clapped her little chubby hands, leaning over in an attempt to grab her father from her high chair.

"I got ya, sweetheart." McCoy said, pulling her from the chair and holding her to his chest. His very bare, very tanned, very _hot_ chest. She squaled in that way she only ever reserved for her father, and pressed her tiny palms to his cheeks. He laughed, something Jim barely heard from him, and made kissy faces at her.

Jim was dying. He was in serious pain. McCoy was being perhaps the most adorable man on the planet, making faces and kissing his little girl, whilst being totally hot with bed-mussed hair and nothing but raggy old sweat pants on.

No.

Jim would _not_ be attracted to his employer.

Or at least, not outwardly.

McCoy huffed as he sipped at his coffee, looking at the clock on the wall. "I'll have to go and get ready-" He muttered, handing the baby off to Jim. His hands brushed McCoy's bare chest, and he shivered.

"Be a good girl, y'here?" McCoy ran a hand over her head, standing close to Jim's side to press a kiss to her scalp.

Like this, Jim could almost pretend they were a family.

~*~

After about two months, McCoy's shifts changed, and so did how often Jim saw him. Rather than sleeping all day he was at work, and he'd come home pretty regularly at about five o'clock. Jim thought it'd mean that McCoy would want to see less of him and more of his daughter, but he was still too busy working to take care of her on his own. Jim felt a little sorry for him, actually. He tried to keep out of his way.

His wife's shifts changed too, funnily enough. She'd come home at lunch and kicked Jim out, telling him to take Jo somewhere because she had "clients" coming over. Who those clients were he didn't know, but he guessed they must be important.

He was slowly falling more and more in love with McCoy. Not even just a stupid little teenage crush, either. He was falling head-over-heals, irrevocably, girl-meets-vampire in love with him, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to help himself next time he was met with a half-naked just-woken-up McCoy.

He thought about handing in his resignation. Maybe getting away from McCoy would make all this better. But then he thought about Jo, the kid he'd come to love like a little sister.

He couldn't just leave her.

So he stayed, and he told himself it was because of the baby, but he had a faint idea that it might just be McCoy.

~*~

Once again Jocelyn kicked him out, and so he decided to take Joanna to the park. She liked the park - McCoy had told him that when he'd first started, and he hadn't been wrong. She liked the grass, and the ducks, and the swings. She just liked to be outdoors.

So of course he was worried when he took her out and she began wailing. He thought maybe getting to the park would silence her. He took her out, sat her between his legs on the grass, but she still cried. So like any good nanny would, he packed her back up and took her home to tell her mother what was wrong.

He had a key to get into the house, so when he found the door locked he just pulled it out of his pocket and let himself in. He couldn't see Jocelyn anywhere - her office was on the ground floor, but she wasn't in there.

Frowning, Jim picked the baby up and held her on his hip. She'd stopped crying now that she was in the cool shade of the house, and so he carried her upstairs, wondering if maybe Jocelyn was in her room or something.

He could hear shuffling and voices coming from the bedroom - the door had been left slightly ajar, and he crept towards it. He didn't want to distrub her if she was still in a meeting. He peeked in, and he really, really wished he hadn't.

She was lying on the bed in what Jim could only assume was meant to be underwear, but was actually more like a few scraps of material. She sat with her legs spread, and someone, some man, walked towards her, pushing her down flat onto the bed and aligning their bodies.

Jim looked away after that. He silently raced along the hall, his face pale and his mouth dry.

He had to get to the hospital.

Where McCoy was still at work.

~*~

"Jim?"

Joanna was wailing again, and Jim sighed as he handed her over. "She keeps crying, I think it's the heat."

McCoy shifted, holding her to his chest. "It was you I was worried about, to be honest."

Jim shook his head a little. "Me? I'm fine. See to your daughter."

It didn't take him too long to do a full assessment - he knew his daughter like the back of his hand, this wasn't going to be an issue.

"Just a fever, so far as I can tell. We'll keep her cool and she'll be fine." He nodded.

Jim gave a nod.

"So what's wrong with you?" McCoy asked.

"I told you, I'm fi-"

"Bullshit." McCoy interrupted. "Tell me."

"No." Jim mumbled, feeling a little childish.

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Tell me, Jim."

"I don't wanna."

McCoy was a persistant little shit, and Jim was starting to feel his resolve waver. He had vowed he would talk to Jocelyn about this first, see what she was going to tell her husband before he interfered. But McCoy was persuasive and he was weak.

It took another ten minutes of McCoy's prodding for him to break.

"Alright," Jim snapped. "Wanna know what's wrong? I just caught you wife in the act with some dude from her work, I assume, and your baby's suddenly ill out of the blue and it's probably my fault seeing as I'm with her so often and I swear to God I'm totally into you like I totally love you and all of this crap is just piling up on me, like, maybe I could've dealed with the whole i-love-you thing but now Jo's sick and you wife's, well-"

He realised what he'd said then. He'd barely even taken a breath.

McCoy's jaw had fell, and he looked at Jim with wide eyes.

"My wife?" He asked.

Jim gulped. "Yeah. I'm sorry."

McCoy sighed. "No, I-" He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. "I kind of suspected, but I-"

"If you want me to- If you want me to leave, I can."

"What did you say about loving me?" McCoy asked quietly. He looked up at Jim, who gave another gulp.

"I love you." Jim murmured. "And not just teenage-crush love. I really love you."

"I need to think about this." McCoy muttered. "Take her to her grandma's, I'll speak to you later."

"Alright." Jim nodded obediently, putting Jo back in her pram and leaving the hospital. Maybe this was a bad idea after all.

~*~

He thought about it for two weeks.

Two weeks were Jim could barely sleep. He was still working, but he somehow never ran into McCoy. It was like the good doctor was deliberately avoiding him. Maybe he was.

Jim tried not to think about that.

The night after he'd blurted out his secret, there was a screaming match. Jim only knew because he came into the apartment to yelling and shouting and shrieking, and then there was the sound of broken glass. That was when Jim did something he'd never done before; he took Joanna to his place. She was still crying when they got there fifteen minutes later. Jim thought he might cry too. He hadn't heard Leonard's voice since.

On the fifteen day since the fight, Jim brought Joanna in for her breakfast, and found him sat at the kitchen table.

"Oh." Jim murmured, as he stepped inside the doorway with Joanna. "Sorry."

He apologised because he was pretty sure that McCoy didn't want to see him. Why would he have avoided him otherwise?

"Don't be." McCoy shook his head. "We need to talk."

"Sure." Jim nodded. He put Joanna in her high chair, and took a seat opposite McCoy. "What's up?"

He knew exactly what was up, but he was trying to be polite.

"Jocelyn and I are getting a divorce." He said simply.

Jim blinked. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." McCoy said. It didn't sound like it was alright. "It's for the best."

"So my job-"

"Is fine." McCoy finished for him. "We still want you to work for us. You're shifts'll change, tha's all."

Jim nodded. "I see."

"That's not what I wanted to talk to you about, though." McCoy added, after a short pause.

Jim gave a rueful smile. "I didn't think so."

McCoy wasn't smiling. "About what you said-"

"Yeah look McCoy," Jim shook his head a little, smile gone. "It doesn't matter, forget about it entirely, it's not gonna stop me from working-"

"I wanted to ask you out."

Jim's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yeah." McCoy nodded. "It'll take a while for the divorce to go through, but if you wanted to try..."

"I want to try." Jim gave a small smile.

"Then I'm willing to try too." McCoy finished. "Just not yet."

Jim nodded; he understood.

"As soon as the divorce papers are filed, Jim-"

"I'm willing to wait."

Jim grinned, trying to bite his lip to hold it back. McCoy stood, and he pressed a kiss to Joanna's head as always. But then he pressed one to Jim's cheek, and Jim blushed.

"I've gotta go to work." McCoy explained. "Behave, the two of you."

"Don't worry." Jim chuckled, reaching out to let Jo wrap a chubby hand around his finger. "We won't."


End file.
